The Legend of Frosty the Snowman
The Legend of Frosty the Snowman is a 2005 American/Canadian direct-to-video animated film produced by Classic Media and Studio B Productions. This movie has also been bundled with the original 1969 Rankin/Bass special and the CBS Entertainment Productions sequel. The special originally aired annually on Cartoon Network in the United States, and it now airs on Kids & Teens TVin the country since December 11, 2011, despite the acquisition of DreamWorks Animation, which acquired Classic Media and renamed it DreamWorks Classics in 2012, and currently distributed by Universal Television. Narrated and sung by Burt Reynolds, with veteran actor/voice artist Bill Fagerbakke in the role of Frosty, the film has very little continuity with the original, featuring a different back-story. Shortly after the special was released, the Frosty the Snowman franchise went into dormancy. Plot At the beginning of the story, after a magical hat strongly escapes the locked-up chests in the attic and flying out through the window, we see the picture perfect town of Evergreen, where all the local children are bound to a ridiculously strict curfew and not allowed to have any kind of fun whatsoever. One calm boy living in that town is named Tommy Tinkerton (the film's tritagonist), the son of the town’s impossibly upbeat but no-nonsense mayor; Mr. Tinkerton. Another storyline stars Tommy’s best friend, Walter Wader (the main protagonist of the story), who shocks everyone, especially his very strict mother, befriends "a magical snowman" named Frosty in the woods in Evergreen. The next day, Walter's rule-breaking gets all the other kids talking, but it greatly upsets Principal Hank Pankley (the story's main antagonist), who's even more adamantly opposed to magic than Mayor Tinkerton (who betrays Tommy that he is under Pankley's control after Walter tells the truth to Mayor Tinkerton). Pankley uses the arrival of Frosty to sow doubts among the townspeople about the Mayor's leadership, and little by little he begins to take over the town. But once magic is stirred up, it is not easily contained. Everything changes, though, when Tommy finds a secret room beneath the Evergreen library, in which he discovers a comic book filled with secrets about Frosty. At first, most of the comic book is blank. Each time Tommy checks it again, new panels appear. Over the course of several scenes, Tommy learns that Frosty's magic is in his hat, that his father (which is Mayor Tinkerton) met Frosty when he was a boy and did believe in magic once upon a time; and that Pankley, a jealous childhood friend of his father's, took Frosty's hat and hid it away in an attic (which is the same attic from the beginning of the movie), causing young Mayor Tinkerton to lose his faith in magic. Meanwhile, Frosty happily wins over the kids, including Tommy's lonely love interest; Sara Simple (a sharp and independent young girl who wants to become an urban planner instead of a "princess"), his older brother; Charlie Tinkerton, who teases his brother and even the happy-go-lucky triplets; Simon, Sully, and Sonny Sklarow. Frosty befriends each of them through the simple means of believing in them, which inspires them to begin to believe in themselves one by one. Increasingly desperate to deny the existence of Frosty and keep Evergreen fun-free, Pankley tricks Walter into helping him lure Frosty for some ice-skating fun in the woods, later then tricks Frosty into venturing him onto "thin ice". But before Walter, noticing the thin ice starting to crack, can be able to save his friend, the unnoticed Frosty, now seeing the ice cracking and realizing it's too late to escape, falls through the ice and melts, and Pankley was be able to capture his hat, which is the key to his magic. Walter watches in tears, feeling heartwrenching about Frosty's unexpected death. As all of this unfolds, Tommy, who was the first one to whom Frosty appeared first, has been sitting on the sidelines in gym class, watching his best friend, his brother and his love interest experiencing adventure and magic in which he could share. But he has held back, even though he yearns to meet Frosty, out of loyalty to his father (because he knows his father would disapprove of him acknowledging the existence of magic). The comic book also reveals to Tommy what Pankley has just done (with Walter's unwitting help) to recapture Frosty. All this time, Tommy has held back from befriending Frosty out of loyalty to his father, who has always told Tommy not to believe in magic. But now Tommy sees that his father believed in magic one time, too, but was being tricked into losing faith. And Tommy realizes that the most loyal thing he can do is not to hide from magic, but to help his father rediscover that magic is indeed real. Tommy explains the truth to Charlie, Sara and Walter and leads them and the Skarlow brothers (which Tommy invite them for "backup") a daring rescue of Frosty and his hat in which Tommy and his companions help out. A final battle between Pankley, Walter, Tommy, a now-reformed Charlie, Sara, and the Sklarow triplets playing capture the flag with Frosty's hat as a flag features a climactic series of scenes follows in Pankley tries and fails to recapture the hat, then tries to deter the townspeople (including Mayor Tinkerton) from going into the woods to see what all the ruckus and noise are about. The parents are too worried, angry and confused: why are their kids out at night? And can this "magical snowman" they have been hearing about be real after all? Meanwhile, Mayor Tinkerton refuses to be deterred, and, after bringing Frosty back again, Tommy is able to reintroduce his father to his old friend, who Mayor Tinkerton had long since stopped believing in ever since. Pankley tries to stir them up to regain control of the situation, but Walter however breaks the spell by throwing a snowball at Pankley. And one by one, the other kids--including Tommy (apparently he joins them for the first time) and their parents join in, until all the citizens of Evergreen, which had forgotten how to have fun, gives itself over joyously to a "snowball-fighting, horseplaying, lark of a good time" , and restoring the fun to Evergreen (by Frosty). As the snow melts, the unseen Frosty joyfully says goodbye to Evergreen and the unseen Pankley gets fired as principal and being arrested for banning fun and magic for no reason, a brief epilogue shows the audience Evergreen transformed into spring—with Charlie playing football, Tommy skateboarding, Mayor Tinkerton doing magic tricks (in honor of his father), Sara reading a book about urban planning and of course Evergreen letting the parents take care of their children. All the time, the story has been narrated (à la "Our Town") by a warm, wise, seemingly omniscient old man named "Thomas" who appears periodically and comments on the events unfolding in Evergreen. In the final scene, Thomas reveals that he is actually Tommy, all grown up, has now married to Sara and he has been telling the audience his own story. Cast * Bill Fagerbakke as Frosty * Burt Reynolds as The Narrator * Grey DeLisle as Miss Sharpey/Simon Skarlow/Sullivan Skarlow * Jeannie Elias as Charlie Tinkerton/Pearl the Librarian * Evan Gore as Paperboy * David Jeremiah as Mr. Simple/Townsperson #1/ Mr. Skarlow * Tom Kenny as Mr. Tinkerton * Tress MacNeille as Mrs. Simple/Girl #1 * Kenn Michael as Walter Wader * Larry Miller as Principal Pankley * Candi Milo as Mrs. Tinkerton/Girl #2 * Kath Soucie as Tommy Tinkerton/Old Sara Simple * Tara Strong as Sara Simple/Sonny Skarlow * Vernee Watson-Johnson as Mrs. Wader Trivia * In 2004, on CBC Television channel, Evan Gore first voices as The Narrator (aka Thomas), longtime before editing and lent to Burt Reynolds from All Dogs Go To Heaven. * On CBC Television channel, Sara Simple only believes in Frosty's magic and reads "Magic and You" book in the end in Evan Gore version, but in Burt Reynolds DVD/VHS version, Sara dreams of becoming an urban planner, instead of a princess and reads "Urban Design" book in the end. * The Girl #1's skin is peach colored like Sara Simple's in Evan Gore version and some scenes in Burt Reynolds version, but her skin turned brown like Walter Wader's in the late Burt Reynolds version. Category:2005 films Category:Films Category:Animated films Category:Comedy films Category:Family films Category:Fantasy films Category:Frosty the Snowman Category:DreamWorks Classics Category:Direct-to-video films